^^S^SSST 


HX64076415 
RA436EU71880    Relations  of  communi 


RECAP 


Eiisits 
...Relations  of  communities  and  states  during 

epidemics  • 

HA436         Eu7         1B90 


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RELATIO N  S 

OF 


nities  and  States 


DURING  EPIDEMICS 


AN  ADDRESS  BY  THE 


HONORABLE  JAMES  B.  EUSTIS, 


DELIVERED  AT  THE 


COMMENCEMENT 


OF  THE 


Medical  Department  oi  the  University  of  Louisiana, 


NEW  ORLEANS,  MAECH  19,  1880. 


NEW  ORLEANS: 

L.  Graham,  Print,  127  Gravier  street. 

1880. 


to 


AN  IMPORTANT  QUESTION. 


Commercial   Intercourse  between  Communities 
and   States    During    Kpidemies. 


Address   of    Ex-Senator    Kustis   at    the    Medical 
College   Commencement. 


Hon.  James  B.  Enstis  yesterday  delivered  the  follow- 
ing able  and  interesting  address  at  the  Commencement 
Exercises  of  the  Medical  College  : 

I  have  felt  an  unusual  embarrassment  in  selecting  a  subject 
upon  which  to  address  you,  as  my  education  and  habits  of 
thought  do  not  qualify  me  to  venture  to  instruct  you  upon  any 
scientific  subject;  but  there  is  a  public  question  involving  such 
vast  interests,  and  to  which  the  medical  profession  bears  so 
peculiar  a  relation  of  responsibility,  that  if  I  succeed  in  giving 
it  due  prominence  for  discussion  by  others,  I  will  feel  that  I 
have  measureably  acquitted  myself  of  the  difficult  task  imposed 
by  my  acceptance  of  the  complimentary  invitation  to  address 
you. 

The  great  problem  to  which  I  allude,  which  in  my  judgment 
involves  the  material  destinies  of  the  South  Mississippi  Valley, 
is  the  relations  of  communities  aud  States  during  epidemics. 
If  this  were  singly  a  question  of  the  origin  and  spread  of  a 
disease,  of  the  cure  and  prevention  of  a  disease,  a  question  of 
individual  and  public  health,  I  would  leave  it  to  the  domain  of 
medical  polemics,  recognizing  that  those  who  are  educated  to 
^  master  a  science  so  remote  from  vulgar  comprehension,  a 
^    science  governed  by  laws  so  incomprehensible  and  mysterious, 


2 

have  a  right  to  have  these  questions  disposed  of    by  the 
authority  of  their  professional  judgment. 

If  it  were  simply  a  question  of  humanity,  of  moral  conduct 
and  moral  responsibility,  I  would  leave  its  discussion  to  those 
whose  high  and  sacred  prerogative  it  is  to  preach  peace  on 
earth,  good  will  to  men,  and  man's  duty  to  man,  and  to  his  God. 

It  has  bearings  beyond  the  limits  of  exclusive  sanitary 
considerations,  and  beyoDd  the  obligations  of  moral  duty  and 
the  comity  of  good  neighborhood,  and  in  endeavoring  to 
present  its  important  and  varied  legal  and  commercial  aspects, 
I  disclaim  any  purpose  to  assail  any  theory  supported  by 
medical  men,  or  to  say  anything  that  is  intended  to  weaken 
human  sympathy  for  human  distress. 

On  the  one  band  we  have  a  strong  popular  belief,  a  fanatical 
popular  alarm — I  use  the  word  fanatical  to  denote  its  earnest- 
ness— an  undefined  popular  right  of  self-preservation,  which 
finds  its  emphatic  manifestation  in  what  are  known  as  shot-gun 
quarantines.  On  the  other  hand  we  have  the  large,  increasing 
and  peremptory  demands  of  commerce,  which  means  intercourse 
with  its  necessities  so  closely  interwoven  into  the  very  conditions 
of  our  daily  existence,  that  any  prolonged  or  unreasonable 
interference  with  its  freedom,  makes  us  feel  as  though  the 
circulation  of  our  own  blood  was  hindered.  For  this  is  an  age 
of  commercial  activity,  commercial  enterprise,  commercial 
development.  The  most  striking  manifestation  of  American 
energy  and  American  civilization  is  the  freedom,  facility  and 
rapidity  of  commercial  intercommunication,  and  its  free  enjoy- 
ment is  a  fundamental  condition  in  the  economy  of  American 
life.  No  one  can  escape  the  aggressive,  far-reaching  and 
beneficent  power  of  commercial  expansion.  Its  blessings  are 
like  the  rains  from  heaven.  A  community  that  seeks  to  isolate 
itself  in  the  wildest  and  most  remote  spot  in  our  country  to 
foster  in  its  seclusion  a  peculiar  creed,  as  soon  as  it  is  numerous 
enough  to  trade,  is  brought  against  its  will  into  direct  commu- 
nication with  the  great  commercial  centres  of  this  continent. 

Commerce  has  had  many  struggles  in  the  history  of  human- 
ity, and  its  triumphs  and  ascendency  are  due  to  its  brave  re- 
sistance to  the  tyranny  of  unreasonable  restraints ;  it  has  ever 


v3 

been  friendly  to  liberty  ;  it  powerfully  contributed  to  the  over- 
throw of  feudalism  ;  it  has  compelled  by  wars  barbarous  nations 
to  make  commercial  treaties,  and  to  arrest  its  progress  and 
development  to-day  is  to  extinguish  the  brightest  torches  that 
illumine  modern  civilization,  and  no  people,  unless  they  wish 
to  rejoice  in  their  own  decadence,  can  forget  the  wise  admoni- 
tion of  its  great  friend  and  patron,  Eichard  Cobden,  that  to  be 
free  and  to  be  prosperous  we  must  give  wings  to  commerce. 
It  is,  therefore,  not  surprising  that  under  all  circumstances, 
under  all  conditions,  in  every  exigency,  even  during  epidemics, 
commerce  should  demand  that  its  great  interests  shall  be  pro- 
tected by  some  uniform  and  authoritative  system  of  regulations, 
some  consistent  and  rational  code  of  conventional  laws  to 
determine  the  rights  and  relations  of  communities  during 
epidemics,  based  upon  some  common  understanding  of  mutual 
privileges  and  mutual  protection. 

For  every  emergency  that  disturbs  society  we  are  supposed 
to  have  laws ;  we  have  laws  of  war  as  well  as  laws  of  peace? 
and  it  would  seem  that  when  society  is  agitated  by  some 
undue  excitement,  convulsed  by  some  frenzy,  seized  by  some 
mania,  swayed  by  some  superstitious  belief,  that  then  does  the 
requirement  of  some  stable  and  controlling  authority  become 
the  more  necessary  and  the  more  imperative.  Such  is  not  the 
case  during  the  period  of  epidemics. 

Every  community  makes  unto  itself  a  law,  or  rather  a  declara- 
tion, which  it  enforces,  based  upon  its  views  of  its  own  rights, 
its  own  powers  and  its  own  scientific  speculations,  and  under 
the  operation  of  this  independent  and  irresponsible  action, 
warlike  notifications  of  non-intercourse  follow,  and  we  have  a 
practical  suspension  of  the  authority  of  civil  government  as 
regards  its  efficiency  to  protect  what  are  believed  to  be  con- 
stitutional commercial  privileges.  Thus  is  presented  a  peril- 
ous antagonism  between  two  great  forces  in  society,  commercial 
rights  and  the  methods  of  a  community  to  protect  itself  against 
the  introduction  of  a  contagious  or  infectious  disease,  a  con- 
flict full  of  perplexities  and  most  difficult  of  adjustment.  But 
as  we  are  the  denounced  and  offending  community,  as  we  are 
made  the  victims  of  commercial    ex-communication    by   the 


utterance  of  that  terrible  curse  of  separation  as  against  a 
leprous  community,  as  it  is  against  us  that  this  war  of  non- 
intercourse  is  declared,  with  its  incalculably  ruinous  con- 
sequences, it  becomes  our  duty  to  discover  the  reason,  the  law, 
the  remedy,  if  any,  for  this  abnormal  condition  of  affairs  which 
threatens  to  cloud  our  brightest  hopes  and  to  contradict  the  san- 
guine prophecies  of  our  future  greatness  and  wealth.  Let  it 
be  announced  that  an  epidemic  exists  in  this  city,  and  judging 
from  the  past,  what  may  we  expect  to  witness?  Warlike 
preparations  on  every  side,  military  campaigns  inaugurated 
that  would  do  credit  to  the  genius  of  Yon  Moltke,  proclama- 
tions of  non-intercourse  issued  by  whom  we  do  not  know,  but 
enforced,  artillery  planted  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi 
Eiver,  not  by  the  authority  of  the  United  States  Government, 
not  by  the  authority  of  even  a  State  government,  but  by  some 
local  committee  to  warn  steamboats  freighted  with  merchan- 
dise and  healthy  passengers  not  to  make  a  landing.  When 
Spain  owned  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  it  was  precisely  for 
such  a  performance  with  regard  to  flatboats  that  the  United 
States  Government  threatened  to  declare  war  against  that 
power ;  and  in  1861  it  was  the  determination  to  enforce  the 
freedom  of  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  Eiver,  which 
includes  the  right  to  land  and  trade,  that  made  the  yeomanry  of 
the  West  swarm  into  resistless  armies.  Ealroad  corporations 
are  notified  not  to  stop  at  stations  that  they  own ;  sometimes 
they  are  required  to  increase  their  rate  of  speed,  and  on  that 
condition  can  pass  over  their  own  property.  At  certain  stations 
armed  men  take  possession  of  trains,  close  the  windows,  hold 
the  passengers  in  military  duress,  and  deny  to  them  the  right 
to  breathe  fresh  air.  Upon  the  highways  in  our  State  sentinels 
with  loaded  guns  are  posted,  skirmishers  are  deployed  to 
resist  the  invasion  of  the  enemy,  that  is,  a  person  or  a  parcel 
of  merchandise  coming  from  New  Orleans,  unless  it  be  playing 
cards,  whisky  or  tobacco,  which  under  this  new  military  code 
are  not,  I  believe,  considered  contraband  of  war,  and  under 
these  arbitrary  and  unauthorized  acts,  this  assertion  of  irre- 
sponsible power,  these  military  proceedings,  commercial  rival- 
ries and  commercial  jealousies  wearing  the   saintly  robes  of 


public  health,  make  New  Orleans  play  the  role  of  Cinderella  to 
such  loviug  sister  cities  as  Mobile  aud  Galveston.  In  the 
meantime  not  a  State  speaks ;  this  anarchy  is  produced  by  the 
edicts  of  towns,  local  committees,  municipalities  and  police 
juries. 

Can  society  continue  to  exist  under  such  conditions  ? 

No  one  claims  that  an  infected  person  has  the  right  to  adver- 
tise in  persona  and  propagate  a  disease.  No  one  claims  the 
right  to  trade  in  and  consign  a  disease.  The  complaint  is  not 
that  an  actually  infected  person  or  thing  is  treated  otherwise 
than  he  should  be.  The  complaint  is  that  a  whole  community, 
without  discrimination,  is  denounced  and  anathematized  by 
irresponsible  authority.  Why,  under  the  decision  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States,  cattle  have  more  rights  than 
these  local  authorities  in  our  own  and  sister  States  accord  to 
citizens  of  New  Orleans.  Missouri  passed  a  law  providing, 
"  No  Texas,  Mexican  or  Indian  cattle  shall  be  driven  or  other- 
wise conveyed  into  or  remain  in  any  county  in  this  State  be- 
tween the  1st  day  of  March  and  the  1st  day  of  November." 
The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  held  that  this  was  an 
indiscriminate  denunciation  against  healthy  and  diseased  cat- 
tle, and  the  law  was  set  aside  because  a  healthy  Texas  steer,  a 
Mexican  cow  or  an  Indian  heifer,  if  it  had  not  the  yellow  fever 
or  some  other  disease,  had  the  constitutional  right  to  come  into 
and  abide  in  any  county  in  the  State  of  Missouri. 

In  ancient  times,  when  a  man  had  the  leprosy  he  was  de- 
nounced as  an  individual  leper;  he  alone  was  considered 
accursed,  he  alone  was  considered  as  smitten  by  the  chasten- 
ing rod  of  a  wrathful  God ;  he  alone  wore  the  badge  of  his  de- 
grading disease,  was  the  recipient  of  man's  inhumanity  to 
man :  he  alone  could  not  bathe  his  parched  lips  in  the  waters  of 
brooks  used  by  his  fellow-man ;  the  denunciation  was  against 
him  alone,  not  against  his  brothers,  his  if  sisters,  his  cousins 
and  his  aunts." 

Some  time  ago,  when  torture  was  practiced  to  please  God, 
and  hot  iron  was  thrust  into  living  human  flesh,  men's  nails 
were  torn  from  their  fingers,  and  their  toes  were  twisted  out  of 
shape  to  inculcate  a  certain  religious  belief,  this  humane  pro- 


6 

cess  of  conversion,  these  persuasive  appliances  of  religious 
edification,  were  not  employed  indiscriminately  against  a  whole 
community,  but  only  the  individual  having  the  disease  of  heresy 
was  denounced,  tortured  and  damned,  although  heresy  was 
considered  a  very  contagious  disease.  Until  the  application  of 
this  doctrine,  it  was  only  in  time  of  public  war  that  the  citizens 
occupying  the  same  territory  are  considered  as  so  closely  asso- 
ciated that  they  lose  their  individual  identity  and  this  soli- 
darity of  pains  and  penalties  is  enforced. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  enumerate  all  the  cases  of  outrage  com- 
mitted against  our  citizens,  A  people  should  be  aroused  to  a 
sense  of  danger  by  a  single  occurrence.  When  four  passen- 
gers in  1863  were  taken  from  the  Trent  by  an  American  cap- 
tain, the  British  Government,  though  they  were  aliens,  spent 
two  million  pounds  sterling  in  sending  ammunition  and  troops 
to  Canada,  and  would  consent  to  nothing  less  than  the  immedi- 
ate return  of  those  passengers  to  a  British  ship  so  that  they 
could  continue  to  travel  unmolested. 

I  will  select  one  of  many  occurrences  which  illustrates  with- 
out exaggeration  the  acts  of  violence  and  restraint,  this  gue- 
rilla warfare,  to  which  our  citizens  are  exposed. 

In  the  latter  part  of  October,  1878,  a  gentleman  left  this  city 
to  attend  to  the  business  of  his  sugar  plantation,  knowing  that 
in  exercising  this  right  he  was  violating  no  law  of  the  United 
States  or  of  this  State.  In  the  evening  he  discovered  that  his 
sugar-house  was  surrounded  by  a  force  of  twenty-five  armed 
men.  The  captain  asked  him  if  he  came  from  New  Orleans  : 
he  pleaded  guilty  to  that  accusation.  He  was  informed  that 
he  must  leave  instantly.  All  remonstrance  was  unavailing. 
It  was  in  vain  that  he  pleaded  that  he  was  an  American  citizen 
and  had  a  right  to  be  on  the  plantation  that  he  owned — it  was 
in  vain  that  he  protested  that  he  was  no  messenger  of  death, 
no  carrier  of  pestilence,  no  disseminator  of  disease,  no  pedler 
in  yellow  fever  germs,  that  he  was  acclimated,  having  had  the 
yellow  fever,  that  he  had  passed  through  every  epidemic 
during  fifty  years,  that  they  might  inspect  and  fumigate  him, 
and  they  would  discover  that  he  was  afflicted  with  no  other 
disease  than  old  age,  which  is  not  believed  to  be  contagious 


or  infectious,  though  very  disagreeable — it  was  all  to  no  pur- 
pose, these  constitutional  and  scientific  arguments  could  not 
cool  the  military  ardor  of  the  captain  and  his  army,  and  this 
unoffending  citizen  was  by  violence  banished  from  his  own 
estate. 

If  we  have  a  civil  government  during  epidemics,  it  is  not  an 
unimportant  question  to  inquire  under  what  authority  was  this 
military  campaign  conducted  against  this  individual  H  This 
soldiery  was  not  United  States  troops — they  were  not  State 
militia,  as  the  security  of  our  free  State  was  not  endangered 
by  this  person  going  to  his  plantation.  There  is  no  law  of  the 
State  authorizing  these  military  bands  to  regulate  this  great 
question  of  intercourse.  Though  often  repeated  and  generally 
acquiesced  in,  it  is  a  monstrous  violation  of  individual  right  and 
individual  liberty,  and  with  its  increasing  abuses,  unless 
checked,  will  drive  population,  capitalist  and  laborer,  from  our 
midst  and  relegate  us  to  the  condition  of  a  society  governed  by 
law.  When,  in  old  times,  a  pauper  or  diseased  person  was 
whipped  ard  carted  back  to  his  place  of  abode  and  settlement, 
the  treatment,  though  harsh,  had  the  sanction  of  a  statute. 

Police  juries  are  authorized  to  enact  ordinances  and  regula- 
tions not  inconsistent  with  the  laws  and  constitution  of  the 
United  States  or  the  State,  to  protect  their  respective  parishes 
against  the  introduction  of  disease. 

Does  this  authorize  military  arrests,  military  duress,  military 
campaigns,  and  military  banishments  ?  Does  this  mean  that 
a  police  jury  can  adopt  any  theory,  whimsical  or  scientific,  as 
it  chooses,  and  issue  its  edict  against  commercial  intercourse  ? 
Are  the  great  interests  of  commerce  and  the  great  rights  of 
intercourse,  which  have  been  secured  at  such  cost,  to  be 
decided  by  a  jurisdiction  so  inferior,  by  a  magistracy  so  in- 
significant ? 

The  rights  of  commercial  intercourse  have  a  history  whose 
traditions  do  not  fade  by  the  side  of  even  those  memorable 
struggles  for  personal  liberty  which  we  Anglo-Saxons  cherish 
with  a  reverence  that  no  lapse  of  time  can  efface. 

In  England  the  right  of  commercial  intercourse  is  a  chartered 
right.     It  was  secured  wheu  those  great  guarantees  of  personal 


8 

liberty  were  wrested  from  kingly  power.  In  Magna  Charta 
(1215)  the  24th  section  reads  :  "All  merchants  shall  have  safe 
and  secure  conduct  to  go  out  of  and  come  into  England  and 
stay  there  and  pass  as  well  by  land  as  by  water,  to  buy  and 
sell  by  the  ancient  and  allowed  customs  without  any  heavy 
tolls  except  in  time  of  war,  or  when  they  shall  be  of  any  nation 
at  war  with  us." 

In  this  country  the  right  of  intercourse  is  a  constitutional 
right.  No  license  can  be  required,  no  tax  can  be  imposed  for 
traveling — every  one's  passport  is  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States.  Notwithstanding  this  general  statement,  those 
who  look  for  affirmative  Federal  legislation  to  remedy  these 
wrongs  or  expect,  so  long  as  we  preserve  our  present  form  of 
government,  that  a  Federal  system  of  quarantine  shall  be 
adopted  are  doomed  to  be  disappointed — that  is,  a  Federal 
system  that  sball  supersede  and  wipe  out  State  quarantines 
and  State  health  laws.  I  am  not  touching  the  question  of  its 
disirability,  but  am  endeavoring  to  impress  on  you  the  convic- 
tion that  I  share,  that  the  hope  of  Federal  aid  and  Federal 
interference  to  solve  this  problem  is  illusory.  The  Federal 
Government  does  and  will  greatly  promote  our  efforts  in  certain 
directions;  but  so  long  as  States  continue  to  be  separate 
political  bodies,  in  my  judgment,  the  government  will  not  by 
affirmative  Federal  legislation  regulate  this  question  of  inter- 
course ;  and  if  this  be  so,  as  I  propose  to  show,  we  must  look 
to  other  remedies  than  to  Federal  succor,  for  that  will  be 
beyond  our  reach,  if  not  beyond  our  desires.  The  fourth  article 
of  confederation  provided  that  "  the  people  of  each  State  shall 
have  free  ingress  and  egress  to  and  from  any  other  State,"  and 
it  is  a  singular  fact  that  if  this  article  had  been  preserved  in 
the  constitution,  no  State  would  have  had  the  right  to  establish 
any  quarantine  regulations  against  another  State,  as  the  police 
power  now  exercised  and  conceded  was  completely  surrendered. 
It  is  because  this  article  was  modified  and  the  police  power 
was  not  surrendered,  that  every  law  passed  by  Congress 
from  the  earliest  date,  May  27,  1796,  to  the  latest  law  of 
1879,  during  a  period  of  eighty-three  years,  has  been  enacted 


0 

iii  aid  and  support  of  State  quarantine  laws,  and  jn  corrobora- 
tion and  recognition  of  the  health  laws  of  the  State. 

Such  was  the  second  law  passed. February  25,  1799.  Such 
was  the  third  law  passed- July  13, 1832,  and  such  was  the  law  of. 
1879,  though  presenting  new  features,  yet  distinctly  recognizing 
the  supremacy  of  the  State  quarantine  laws,  and  the  principle 
of  obedience  of  Federal  officers  in  the  execution  of  the  quar- 
antine  laws  of  the  State. 

Two  strenuous  efforts  after  the  epidemics  of  1798  and  1878 
were  made  to  influence  Congress,  and  yet  the  police  power  or  the 
State  upon  the  subject  of  State  quarantines  remains  to-day  as 
practically  unaffected  by  the  assertions  of  Federal  control  as 
it  was  eighty  years  ago. 

In  1798  New  York  city  was  visited  by  a  terrible  yellow  fever 
epidemic.  Tbe  excitement  and  alarm  were  very  great.  Gov. 
Mifflin,  of  Pennsylvania,  not  a  local  committee,  proclaimed,  a 
non-intercouse  between  Philadelphia  and  New  York  city. 
Upon  the  disapi)earance  of  the  epidemic  thanksgivings  were, 
proclaimed  in  New  York  and  the  neighboring  States,  and  fasts 
were  proclaimed  in  Connecticut  and  neighboring  cities.  Gov. 
Jay,  of  New  York,  applied  to  the  Federal  Government,  and 
although  it  was  in  the  heyday  of  federalism,  President  Adams 
thus  alluded  to  the  subject  in  his  message: 

"  While,  with  reverence  and  resignation  we  coutemplate  the 
dispensation  of  divine  Providence  in  the  alarming  and  de- 
structive pestilence  with  which  several  of  our  cities  and  towns 
have  been  visited,  there  is  cause  for  gratitude,  and  mutual  con- 
gratulations that  f.he  malady  has  disappeared,  and  that  we  are 
again  permitted  to  assemble  in  safety  at  the  seat  of  Govern- 
ment for  the  discharge  of  our  important  duties.  But  when  we 
reflect  that  this  fatal  disorder  has,  within  a  few  years,  made 
repeated  ravages  in  some  of  our  principal  seaports,  and  with 
increased  malignancy,  and  when  we  consider  the  magnitude  of 
the  evils  arising  from  the  interruption  of  public  and  private 
business,  whereby  the  national  interests  are  deeply  affected,  I 
think  it  my  duty  to  invite  the  Legislature  of  the  Union  to  ex- 
amine the  expediency  of  establishing  suitable  regulations  in 
aid  of  the  health  laws  of  the  respective  States." 


10 

In  the  response,  which  was  then  customary  from  the  Senate, 
they  reply  to  this  recommendation  as  follows  : 

M  Sympathy  for  the  sufferings  of  our  fellow- creatures  from 
disease,  and  the  important  interests  of  the  Union  demand  of  the 
of  the  Kational  legislation  a  ready  co-operation  with  the  State 
Governments  in  the  use  of  such  means  as  seem  best  calculated 
to  prevent  the  return  of  this  fatal  calamity." 

The  result  was  the  act  of  February  25, 1799.  These  eloquent 
words  express  to-day  as  they  did  then  the  spirit  of  Federal 
legislation — a  strong  sympathy,  a  noble  charity,  a  manifest  dis- 
position to  aid  and  succor  and  encourage,  but  at  the  same  time 
an  acknowledged  impotency  to  control,  to  supersede  and  to 
interfere  with  State  quarantine  regulations ;  for  upon  questions 
non-political — in  fact,  upon  this  very  question — the  debates  dis- 
close that  the  Eepublicans  of  Massachusetts  to-day  is  as  jealous 
of  this  State  police  power  as  is  the  extremist  Southern  Demo- 
crat. So  long  as  the  local  authorities  of  Alabama,  Texas,  Mis- 
sissippi and  our  own  State  believe  that  their  irregular  methods 
of  protection  must  be  enforced,  though  our  commerce  perish, 
we  must  expect  some  other  remedy  than  Federal  aid  in  this 
trying  emergency. 

Yet  some  governmental  authority  must  be  invoked  to  deter- 
mine this  great  question  of  intercourse  during  epidemics.  This 
dangerous  tendency  to  independent  and  irresponsible  action 
discloses  a  serious  defect  that  must  be  cured,  and  confronts  us 
with  a  peril  that  must  be  circumvented.  If  these  epidemics 
are  to  recur  society  must  seek  some  other  shelter  than  mob 
law— must  depend  upon  something  stronger  than  a  sense  of 
public  justice — must  assert  its  rights  firmly  aDd  demand  a  satis- 
factory solution  of  this  great  question. 

It  occurs  to  me  that  most  of  this  trouble  could  be  avoided  by 
placing  this  question  upon  a  higher  level.  Let  it  be  made  a 
State  and  inter-State  question.  As  to  our  foreign  relations,  it 
is  assuming  the  proportions  of  an  international  question,  and 
although  as  to  our  internal  relations  it  is  equally  important, 
we  find  it  to  be  a  police  jury  question,  and  sometimes  it  does 
not  even  rise  to  that  dignity.  There  is  a  responsibility  when  a 
State  acts,  there  is  a  comity  between  States,  there  is  a  sense  of 


11 

security  and  a  guarantee  of  justice,  of  consistency,  of  uniform- 
ity, when  a  State  deals  with  its  citizens  and  other  States.  The 
proper  functions  ot  a  police  jury  are  not  to  determine  a  ques- 
tion of  intercourse  or  nou -intercourse,  that  may  involve  the 
commercial  existence  of  a  great  city.  If  towns  in  Arkansas 
and  Mississippi  will  plant  cannon  on  the  banks  of  the  Missis- 
sippi Eiver  practically  to  prohibit  its  navigation,  I  say  let  it 
be  done  by  the  authority  of  the  States  of  Arkansas  and  Missis- 
sippi, and  let  the  responsibility  rest  upon  them.  If  Montgomery 
is  to  deny  the  right  to  our  people  even  in  transit  to  breathe  the 
air  of  heaven,  I  say  let  it  be  done  by  authority  of  the  State  of 
Alabama  ;  if  Mobile  and  Galveston  are  to  steal  our  commerce, 
let  it  be  done  upon  the  authority  of  the  States  of  Texas  and 
Alabama,  and  if  a  man  cannot  travel  in  this  State,  let  the  pro- 
hibitions come  from  the  State.  Police  juries  can  continue  to 
build  bridges  and  grant  ferry  privileges ;  cities  and  towns  can 
continue  to  clean  their  streets  and  arrest  drunken  people,  but 
this  great  question  of  intercourse  during  epidemics,  and  of  pro- 
tection to  communities  will  rise  to  the  level  of  the  question  of 
public  crimes,  to  which  it  is  equal  in  importance ;  to  the  ques- 
tion of  public  morality,  to  which  it  is  not  subordinate ;  and  to 
the  question  of  public  order,  to  which  it  is  not  foreign— for  if 
it  is  not  deserving  of  that  high  station  civil  government  during 
the  severest  crisis  to  which  society  is  exposed  becomes  a 
pageantry  and  a  mimickry. 

I  trust  that  the  members  of  the  medical  profession  who  are 
so  eminent  for  their  attainments,  so  zealous  for  the  public  good, 
who,  by  some  concerted  action,  deservedly  exercise  such  a  vast 
influence,  and  whose  counsel  and  advice  have  such  weight,  will 
consider  this  great  question  so  imperfectly  presented  by  my- 
self worthy  of  their  most  ambitious  efforts  and  by  creating  and 
guiding  public  opinion,  they  may  demand  some  legislation  that 
will  save  our  society  from  threatened  anarchy,  our  commerce 
from  certain  destruction,  and  that  will  reconcile  freedom  of 
intercourse  with  due  protection  to  communities  against  the 
introduction  of  contagious  and  infectious  diseases. 


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Relations  of  communities  and 
states  during  epidemics.    


NOV   5 


1954  C  U.  BINDERY 


